The link below is about a property owner in Austin, Texas. She rented her property to a “scammer,” her term, who moved in and then caused many problems. This story is well-worth reading and gives some advice at the end that is very informative about how to avoid these problems.
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Happy to see that many of the red flags we warn about here were indeed red flags for this writer. Regular readers of the forum would probably avoid the situation this writer found herself in.
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In our case, I have had several potential guests that wanted to rent our apartment for more than a month at a time, it was a temptation but I realized there could be other problems and did not do it.
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Interesting. I suspect the outcome would be very different in most states outside of Texas. I suppose it’s worth reading up on all tenancy-related laws for my area again.
Also, something seemed off when I read this piece. The Homads name seemed overused, then I noticed the URL, the use of the Homads logo, and the note saying this was originally published on homads dot com. And wouldn’t you know it, the author is the CEO of Homads. This is basically a paid advertisement and I think a generous amount of salt may be warranted while reading.
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I didn’t think it showed Homads in a particularly favorable light.
“Homads had just switched their payment provider from WePay to Stripe so I assumed”
“Homads does not share personal information such as your email or phone number.”
“It was with bad timing that Homads introduced online screening reports for homeowners just a week after booking Tyler!”
It’s also worth noting that if this article had been posted by the author instead of a known forum member we would have deleted it. 
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Texas is not the outlier here, the laws are almost identical to my New England state. California is the outlier. 10 years is lower than average, many states require 20 years and paying taxes and such. It’s fair to say that squatting is very difficult in most states.
Thank you for sharing the article
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The maximum stay I allow for anyone to stay is 21 days. Most stay from four to 10 days.
I give guests my card with phone number and email address. My listing is inactive right now but many of our long-term guests are now contacting me asking for a reservation–I ask them for their email and tell them I will let them know when we reopen. Right now my son and his 32 year old wife are staying with us. His wife had a brain aneurysm about four years ago, is 95 percent paralyzed and in a wheelchair.
That article was VERY long, the usable part was at the end.
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You’ve mentioned this before. I so admire your work and sacrifice in this regard. I have a friend here recovering from a knee replacement and it’s a lot of work. Best wishes for you and yours in the coming year.
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A slick infomercial for Homads.
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Can’t happen here in Spain. We do have big issues with okupas (squatters essentially), but in this scenario the local Policia would be less diplomatic than those in Texas. If someone wont leave a hotel or STR, or wont pay the bill, it’s essentially viewed as theft and they’d be either removed from the premises or removed and arrested.
JF
Never heard of Homads. Sorry for posting.
What a CROCK. This so-called “article” is written by the CEO of homads.
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Curious as to how your friend is doing. I’m scheduled for a full knee replacement in less than 2 weeks and am terrified. I’ve got two different people who will be rotating through staying at my house because I can’t stay there due to my four pugs (infection risk?) and the fact that my home is on pilings. I’ll be a basket case and so will they!
They are doing well. They are still staying with me because they aren’t 100% recovered of course. She can move around pretty well with the walker and a few steps without it. She has a machine that she gets into every day that moves her leg back and forth to get range of motion up on that knee. She also does other exercises off the machine during the day.
Interestingly there have been plenty of dogs here, there were 8 here until Monday. Nothing has been said by the nurse or physical therapist about dogs. I assume you are staying somewhere that you will have help. Even though she can sponge bathe herself and get off the toilet on her own there are still a lot of things she needed help with, especially the first few days. She’s been sleeping on my motorized reclining sofa rather than on the bed too.
We seem to be digressing from the original topic. My direct email is kaiserdr at yahoo. Email me there and I will try to answer you.
Yes, I will be at my cousin’s home. They’re both retired and their house is street level. Home health care will come in for 2-3 weeks, as will PT, and I will have that machine hooked up as well. I don’t understand the dog thing either but it’s something very specific to the surgeon I’m using. One of my pugs has never been away from me in 8 years, sleeps with me. That’s probably the concern. I’ve avoided this for 12 years, time to bite the bullet.
I’m confused, did you mean to reply to me? I was responding to a post of KKC.
My mistake, thought you were replying to me.
This happens when people get email notifications that someone has posted on their thread and then they reply via email rather than coming to the forum and reading the thread. You can tell because there is a little envelope icon by his reply.
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